Expect Your Doctor to Ask These Questions When Starting Panic Attack Therapy
Maybe you have tried several treatments, tips and tricks for stopping your panic attacks, but so far, nothing has helped. Preparing yourself with the knowledge of what to expect when it is time to get help can lessen the anxiety that can be caused by not knowing what will happen when you first seek professional help.
This is a time when your journal, if you’ve kept one, can be very helpful in answering questions on forms that pertain specifically to your attacks. You will need to answer a lot of questions, and to provide a great deal of information to your doctor, so try to do so as accurately as you can. The following is a list of some of the information you can expect to have to provide.
While it may be difficult to remember exact dates, you will be expected to provide a history of illnesses and surgeries you have had before.
Information on any traumatic events that you remember experiencing, and that may still make you uncomfortable to think about will help your doctor, so think about things that have affected you such as your children moving away to go to college, the death of someone close to you, a breakup or divorce, or a natural disaster by which you were deeply affected.
Providing an accurate list of medications (and the dosage for each) that you are taking, or have taken over the last six months or so is going to be very important.
Information on whether anyone in your family has panic or anxiety attacks (or whether they suffered from them in the past) is something your doctor will also need to know.
A completely honest answer is going to be required related to any questions your doctor asks you about your alcohol consumption on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, as alcohol is a proven trigger for attacks.
Another known trigger for attacks is recreational drug use, so be prepared to provide honest answers to questions about this subject.
Your doctor is going to want to know how much caffeine you have on a daily basis (coffee, tea or caffeinated soda), and what happens if you don’t have it; in other words, do you get a headache or are you too tired to function without it?
Another set of questions that your journal will be able to help you answer are those about how often you feel anxious or stressed, and what signs let you know that an attack is imminent.
Your triggers will be a topic of discussion as well, so be prepared to tell your doctor if you have heart palpitations when you have to drive, or start sweating profusely when an elevator goes past the third floor, for example.
If you forget to tell your doctor something during your first visit, that’s okay, just let them know the next time, and just remember to be as thorough and honest as you can be when answering all the questions your doctor asks.
Want more information? Visit Ending Panic Attacks and find plenty of informative content ranging from general information about anxiety therapy to very specific “how to” info on panic attacks.
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